Review: Uncle Vanya (Дядя Ваня)

Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov
Sydney Festival
Sydney Theatre - 23 January 2007


Recently, I was discussing with a Russian friend of mine the great canon of work in Australia theatre. I asked him at one point whether there was a translation of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

Wryly, he looked at me and said "Why? We have Chekhov."

Indeed.

And this week, Sydney audiences have the most glorious fortune of being able to have a bit of that Chekhov for ourselves - Uncle Vanya. And it is a Chekhov in the most dazzling light of intricacy and understatement. It is a breath-taking journey that captures human emotion in an almost photographic way.

Declan Donnellan on Checkov said he "clearly sees the distance between what we want to say and the meagre words we have to say it". The power of this notion is gently placed on your shoulder over three hours. It tends you. It holds you until the final moments when it makes your hair stand on end as you slide down into the plays despair.

Russian theatre, so steeped in the traditions of Stanislavsky, make the newer acting techniques appear so infantile. The staging of this production, the seemlessness, the performances, it is all so intricate, that from one scene to the next, you are always unsure of how they got there.

But then you are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of what each of these characters say and the weightlessness in which they stage it. This production of Uncle Vanya is the best theatre you will experience.

I wish I could better phrase my feelings on last night's performance, however, I have been so forcefully reminded that the distance between what we want to say and the meagre words we have to say it makes that almost impossible.


Photo Credit: Prudence Upton, courtesy of the Sydney Festival